After being unemployed for two years, I am working again. But before you start jumping up and down with joy on my behalf, let me add: instead of being one of the nearly 14 million Americans who are unemployed, I am now one of the 8.5 million Americans who are under-employed. That is, I am working part time, earning about a third of what I was making before I was laid off in early 2009.

Nevertheless, I beat the odds. All indications are that those who have been out of work longest are least likely to find work. But not only that. I am fifty-two years old. Both experts and anecdotal evidence indicate that those of us over the age of fifty are at an even bigger disadvantage.

But I also have a message for all those employers who discriminate against those of us who are over fifty and/or have been out of work a while: your loss.